


Got Your Back - Platonic VLD Week Day #5

by hufflepirate



Series: Platonic VLD Week [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Crash Landing, Cuddling & Snuggling, First Aid, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Missions, platonic co-sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 22:05:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10053452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepirate/pseuds/hufflepirate
Summary: The mission started going badly long before Shiro realized Lance was injured and trying to hide it.  Now, stranded alone on a strange planet and completing their mission on foot while they wait for the lions to self-repair, Shiro also has to figure out how badly Lance is hurt, why his uniform isn't healing him, and what to do about it.Prompt was: Got your back / Don’t let go  (This actually has both lines in it.)





	

"Don't let go!" Shiro shouted, heart racing. Lance was dangling over the edge of the cliff in front of him.  Shiro knew he had him because he could feel the pressure of Lance's hands holding onto his own metal one, but he couldn't feel Lance's skin. Was it a solid grip? Were his hands sweating? Was he slipping? He suspected he was squeezing Lance's hands too hard, but he couldn't tell for sure.

His Galra arm was stronger than his human one, but at this angle, it didn't matter.  He couldn't pull Lance up without rearranging his position.  "Are your boosters working?" he shouted.

"Still busted! Pull me up!"

Shiro gritted his teeth and did it, trusting Lance to hold on as he rearranged his body from its awkward, desperate sprawl to a position with a little more strength - and a little more leverage. Lance was still there when Shiro found the angle he needed. He was still there when Shiro started pulling him up. Still there. Still there. As Shiro pulled him up over the edge, Lance tried to help with his feet and legs, making the last stretch a little bit easier. Then he was back on solid ground.

They took a deep breath together, and Lance let go of Shiro's hand. The sudden absence of pressure was terrifying even with Lance sitting right there in front of him, and Shiro leaned forward to grab the other paladin's shoulder with his human hand, just to make sure he was really there. Lance reached up and put a hand over Shiro's in return, and Shiro figured he was probably pretty shaken up, too.

They sat like that for longer than would usually have been comfortable, just breathing together. Then Shiro pulled his hand away with a nod, to tell Lance he was ok again, and climbed to his feet. He re-offered his human hand to Lance to haul the boy up beside him. "We should get going." 

Lance nodded back and took it.

If Shiro had known their part of the mission would go this way, he might have brought Hunk along with them, too. Hunk wouldn't have been able to stop the crash that had taken the lions temporarily out of commission or the monster that had ripped through the booster rockets on the back of Lance's uniform before Shiro could take it down. But he might have been able to do something about it once the damage was done, so that Lance was a little safer and more mobile.

Then again, those same skills were why Shiro had sent him along with Pidge and Keith to begin with. That part of the plan had to go right, too. He reminded himself that they were fine. Safe. Still free, and still fighting.  Hunk could take care of the others.  They were going to be ok.

Lance walked a little bit closer to Shiro than he'd been walking before, but that was ok. It actually made Shiro feel a little safer knowing he could be there faster if something happened to Lance again.

"Thanks for the save," Lance said after a moment, "I know I'm, uh - just thanks."

Shiro's eyebrows wrinkled as he came back to earth and out of his own thoughts. What did Lance think he was that Shiro wouldn't save him? "Of course," he said carefully, "Always."

He felt like he should say something else, but he wasn't sure what it should be, so for a moment, he just fell silent.

"So," Lance said, after the quiet had gone on too long, "How do we know where the cave is now that the lions are down?"

"I remember where we were heading before we crashed. And I'm hoping the lions will wake up and come meet us before we get there."

"Yeah." Lance didn't seem to be buying it, or at least, he didn't seem any less uncomfortable than he had before.

Shiro wasn't sure he knew much about leadership, but what he _did_ know was that confidence was half the battle, and Lance usually responded well to it.  Something else was going on, but he wasn't sure what, and he didn't know how to figure it out besides asking.

"What's up, Lance? Is something wrong?" He was so not cut out for this. He wanted to be cut out for this. But it was one thing to know what to say to Keith, who he'd known before all this, or to Katie, who he'd heard so much about before he met her, and another thing to know what to say to Lance or Hunk. Not that it wasn't usually pretty obvious what to say to Hunk. He wore his heart on his sleeve. Not like Lance. Shiro couldn't figure out how to read Lance, because whatever this top layer of cockiness and machismo was, it wasn't the real story.

Lance smiled, and it looked real, but a tingling in the back of Shiro's neck and along his spine told him it wasn't. "Nah, man, I'm good! I'm a Paladin of Voltron! Near death experiences are my _jam_! Just gotta get my feet under me again." 

"Lance, I-" he must have sounded too serious, because as soon as he opened his mouth, Lance was running ahead, with more energy than he ought to have given how down he'd seemed since Shiro pulled him over the cliff.

"Sweet! We're finally into the trees again! These are so weird."

Shiro let Lance run ahead, poking at the vegetation. He'd just have to watch Lance's back and hope the younger paladin worked whatever this was out on his own.

They'd hoped this would be a short mission, but with so much ground to cover on foot, and so far to go after that to get back to their lions, it was going to be a while.

Maybe Lance would open up later. He could wait. Focus wasn't the only thing you got from patience.

Lance slowed down again after a while, when he didn't think Shiro was still watching, and this time he was walking funny, like he was trying to hold his torso at a specific, not-quite-natural angle. Shiro knew the look of someone trying to hide an injury, and it concerned him.

He'd let Lance put some distance between them, but if the other paladin was injured, he couldn't afford to leave him unprotected, even for a few extra feet. He surged forward, catching up to Lance quickly and then scrambling for an excuse for his behavior. "Hey, Lance, keep an eye out for - vegetables." He almost winced at his own awkwardness, but managed not to.

"Vegetables?" Lance asked, eyebrow raised.

"Yeah," he answered, plowing forward, "Anything that you remember from one of Coran's weird paladin lunches or Hunk's experiments or the cabinets in the pantry. It's getting late and we might not make it back today. This planet spins faster than Earth, so it's a shorter day." And he'd saved it. Good.

Lance nodded, "Ok, yeah, got it! I hope things are going better for the others. Can you imagine how much Hunk would whine if he missed dinner?"

Shiro smiled, trying to look relaxed and not like he was picking up even more signs that Lance was injured, now that he was closer. "I'm not crazy about it myself," he joked. 

"Better find some vegetables, then," Lance answered, "Or berries, or whatever." 

By the time they reached the cave, they hadn't found any food, but Lance had finally stopped trying to pretend he was fine. He still hadn't _said_ anything about what was bothering him, he'd just let his babbling about his favorite berries subside and his pace get slower and his posture get stiffer. As darkness fell around them, Shiro hovered even closer to Lance's side, pretending it was so that the other paladin could see better by the faint glow of his hand, even though he was really trying to stay close enough to catch Lance if he tripped.

"Just a little farther," he said encouragingly, "We're almost to the cave. And then since we're gonna have to be here until it's light again, we can take a breather before we look for the gems."

"Yeah," Lance said, breathing harder than he usually would on a climb like this, "Sounds good." His smile was strained. Shiro felt guilt wash over him that he hadn't stopped Lance from getting hurt, and that he hadn't noticed quicker or made him stop. But then, they didn't want to be in the forest at night, either, so maybe there hadn't been a choice.

Inside the cave, Lance sat down so fast Shiro thought for a moment that he'd actually collapsed. For a moment, he just stood there, staring at Lance and trying to figure out how to broach the topic of his injury, but he just didn't know what to _do_ with Lance and all his walls up all the time. He started moving, gathering things to make a fire, just so that he'd have a moment or two longer to think about it.

Finally, he settled on the straightforward, business-like approach - give orders, assess Lance's injuries, patch him up if necessary, and then worry about the rest of it once that was done.

"Tell me about your injuries," he said firmly, as he started to build the fire. "Where does it hurt?"

Lance raised an eyebrow. "So you, uh, saw that, huh?   Sorry, Shiro, I really did try to get away from that thing. I know I'm not as fast as Keith, but-"

That thing? "Wait, the monster?" he asked, looking up at Lance. "I thought he only got your suit."

"No, he definitely got me, too." Lance wasn't looking at him, his eyes focused down and away instead. He was weirdly still, and it made Shiro nervous. "The suits self-repair, mostly, so then it was covered up and I figured, you know - gotta keep moving. I didn't want to get in the way of the mission."

Shiro answered a little too quickly, forgetting to blow on the sparks he'd managed so that the start of the fire fizzled out again. "Lance, that's crazy! You've gotta _tell_ us things like that! How bad is it?"

"I dunno. It feels pretty bad, but the undersuits are supposed to staunch bleeding and I couldn't see when I twisted around to look, 'cause the shell closed itself back up. I mean, I _thought_ it was just a scratch, but it's getting worse. I think the adrenaline's wearing off."

Shiro nodded, and went back to focusing on the fire so that he could calm himself down. He didn't want to yell at Lance. That wouldn't help either of them right now. He'd told himself he was going to be businesslike about this until Lance was patched up, but he was already slipping, and he had to get it back.

Finally, the fire was done. He looked up at Lance again. "You'd better let me check out the wounds. I can tell you're hurting pretty bad. You're never this still!" He meant the last part to be a joke, but his voice couldn't carry it off, and it sounded sad in his ears, instead.

Lance looked up and made eye contact, blushing, "I think I'm gonna need some help with that. Twisting my back is -" he paused for a moment, "Not great."

Shiro nodded, taking a deep breath, then stood up and helped Lance to his feet, to get a better angle on the top of his uniform. He forced himself not to worry about the way Lance swayed, just a little bit, as he tried to stay upright. It was time to stay calm. One problem at a time. He could worry about the exhaustion or who knew what else after he'd assessed the actual injuries.

Shiro laid a hand on Lance's shoulder. " _Tell_ me if it hurts, ok? I'm gonna try not to make it worse than I have to, but you've gotta communicate with me."

Lance nodded, but it turned out the agreement was sort of a moot point anyway. Lance yelped as soon as he'd lifted his arms up high enough to get out of the uniform and Shiro cursed under his breath. Lance made a small surprised sound.

"Sorry, Lance." He wasn't sure if he was apologizing for the pain or the cursing. "I'm just gonna try to do this as fast as I can. Then it'll be over. Hang on for me."

The top layer of Lance's armor resisted a little as Shiro pulled on it. When it came free, Lance cried out, and Shiro had to bite his tongue to keep himself from cursing again. "Sorry Lance. That's probably gonna be the worst part." He didn't know if that was true or not, but it slipped out anyway. "Take a deep breath." Lance nodded, breathing slowly in and out.

"It really hurts," he said.

The armor in Shiro's hand had dried blood on the inside of it, and he realized that Lance's wounds had clotted against it after it closed, instead of against the inner layer of the uniform covering them. That was bad, because it meant the suit's technology wasn't working right. It wasn't protecting or sealing the wound like it was supposed to.

"Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth," he told Lance, "You're gonna be ok." He hoped that was true.

The beast's claws had left four long slashes across Lance's back. They were long and fairly deep, and they looked painful. Shiro was glad Lance couldn't see him wince at the sight. The one toward his left shoulder was the deepest, with each one farther to the right a little shallower, until the fourth was just a scratch, where the beast's claws hadn't been able to get as much purchase. The underlayer of Lance's uniform was ripped along the same lines, too torn up to be much help to him. So much for fancy Altean textiles. 

"How bad is it?" Lance asked.

"I'm gonna patch you up," he answered, avoiding the question, "Just hang tight. I don't know why your underlayer didn't help more, but we'll make it work. You're gonna be fine."

He wasn't actually sure of that. Taking off the top layer of the armor had started the bleeding again, and those deepest two scratches looked like they might be hard to treat. He started stripping out of his armor, hoping his own shirt would work better than Lance's shredded one had.

He dumped the shell of his armor unceremoniously onto the floor of the cave, stepping closer to Lance again as he stripped off his undershirt. "If you think you can handle the motion, I wanna try just swapping your shirt for mine and seeing if mine can stop the bleeding. If it doesn't, we can rip it up for bandages."

He wished he had something cleaner, something he hadn't already sweated in. He wished he had water to rinse the shirt and, more pressingly, the wounds. But he didn't, and they hadn't passed any major water sources on the way here, and he couldn't leave Lance like this to go find one. "Why don't you hold this, so it doesn't get dirty?" he asked, holding the shirt out to Lance.

Lance was staring at him, and he suddenly remembered why he never let the others see his skin, if he could help it. He blushed, feeling himself glow red all the way down through his shoulders.

"Shiro, you-" Lance began.

"I'm ok. They're just scars. They don't hurt anymore." That was true, until people started looking at them, and then it was like he remembered. He could feel them again, not painful, really, just _there_ and different than he used to be, and vaguely aching, like a memory.

Lance snapped back to himself and took the shirt. Shiro worked Lance carefully out of his torn shirt, then helped him into the new one, wincing every time Lance did. Lance was biting his lip now, to stop himself from making so much noise, but they were close enough together for Shiro to hear the hitches in his breath and feel it every time he flinched.

Shiro's shirt hung loosely on Lance, too big in every direction, though not by an awful lot. It would have been fine if he'd been planning to run around in it, or even wear it under the uniform, but it wasn't tight enough for its supposed bandaging qualities to work, and it was almost immediately clear that they were going to have to take it back off again.

This time, it was Lance who cursed, sounding tired. 

"I'm sorry," Shiro said, "I really thought-"

"Just do it," Lance said wearily, interrupting for the first time in a while, "I wanna sit down." 

Shiro nodded, working as quickly as he could to get the shirt back off and then supporting Lance as he sank back to the cave floor with a sigh. Lance had lost quite a bit of blood - more than Shiro had ever expected one of his paladins to lose on a mission - and it was starting to worry him. He ripped his shirt up quickly, then knelt next to Lance, where he could get to him to work.

Wrapping Lance's torso up was another long, fairly torturous process, one that made Shiro feel guilty for not realizing Lance was injured sooner, and for making him keep his arm up out of the way for so long. The shallower two cuts were already clotting on their own, but the deeper ones were trouble, and he had to do this. He kept reminding himself that he _had_ to do this.

Lance was breathing steadily again, in through the nose and out through the mouth like Shiro had told him to, and Shiro found himself doing the same, their breaths moving in rhythm with each other as Lance tried to stay steady and not cry out and Shiro tried to stay calm and not let his hands shake. He couldn't think about how much he was hurting Lance. He had to keep his mind on the goal. He had to think long-term and let the moment whoosh away in front of him, in and out and in and out.

Shiro had originally been planning to look for the gemstones they'd come for as soon as he'd checked on Lance, but by the time he was done, he was almost as tired as Lance was. He slumped down, from kneeling to sitting, and just looked at the other paladin for a few moments.

Lance looked back, silent for a while before he asked, "How did you - How do you - I mean -" He took a breath and then just said it, "I'm super tired, but I don't know how to lay down without it hurting worse. I don't even want to move."

Shiro nodded. "I know. But sometimes there's nothing to do about that."

"What did you do, when you-" Lance gestured at Shiro's chest and arms, with their scars all over.

Shiro blushed, but it was a fair question. A good one. One he'd never been asked. "A lot of the time, right when the adrenaline from the ring wore off, I just passed all the way out. I mean, the pain would hit and I'd literally just-" he waved his hand sideways, to illustrate fainting, "And I had multiple injuries a lot of the time, so I'd lay down on the one that hurt the least."

Lance sighed. "Man, I hate sleeping on my stomach."

Shiro thought about the injuries, imagined them on himself, considered it, and decided not to suggest Lance try to sleep on his side. He'd wind up pulling at the wounds at the wrong angle, and that was no good. A casual glance around the cave revealed no obvious places to sleep that would be comfortable, either, and nothing to cushion them.

"Well," he said finally, "We should try to get some sleep anyway. You've lost a lot of blood and we have a lot of walking to get back to the lions tomorrow. You'll need your strength. You can use me as a pillow if you want, though."

He assumed Lance was going to say no, but whether from blood loss or exhaustion, he answered with relief instead. "Thanks." Lance's smile was small but genuine, and Shiro didn't regret offering, as awkward as he felt about it.

Shiro scoped out the flattest piece of ground, then helped Lance up and over to it, before lying down first and getting as comfortable as he could be on a cave floor. Lance made a couple of soft pained noises as he laid down next to Shiro. He initially tried just to rest his head on Shiro's shoulder, but it didn't work well. Shiro had known it wouldn't. He'd worked it out in his head on the way over to this part of the cave. He'd thought back to his own injuries, remembering the ones most similar to Lance's, the injuries, and the muscles around them, and the rest of his body lined up with them, and all the ways the body tied itself together, muscle and sinew and skin, everything linked and connected and hurting.

"It'll work better if you scoot up," he explained softly, "I really don't mind. Not if it helps. If you just-" Lance didn't really seem to understand what Shiro was getting at, but once he'd been told it was ok, _really_ ok, he was suddenly pretty pliable, letting Shiro rearrange them both and trusting him to make it work.

"Is that better?" Shiro finally asked, "Is that ok?"

Lance was sprawled all the way across Shiro's chest, left elbow dangling down on Shiro's right side while his legs stretched out on the left. He wasn't perfectly flat, but the part of his back where his injuries were worst was at the closest angle Shiro could get it to the angle he'd been holding as they walked.

"Yeah," Lance answered, "I'm ok."

Lance's breath felt weird ghosting across his chest, but Shiro tried not to let it freak him out. He and Lance were ok. They were gonna be ok. He draped his human arm across the small of Lance's back, safely below the scratches, and rearranged slightly to pull his Galra arm behind him as a pillow, trying not to jostle Lance too much. "Good."

"Mm-hm."

They weren't uncomfortable - or at least, Shiro wasn't, and he hoped Lance wasn't - but they stayed awake for too long anyway, breathing and staring at the darkness and trying not to move so that Lance wouldn't hurt any worse.

Shiro was almost asleep when Lance started talking again, his voice soft and raspy as he hovered near sleep. "So I'm probably gonna have some scars too, right?"

Shiro thought for a minute. "Yeah, probably. That shallowest one'll be fine, and I dunno about the next shallowest, but the two on the left will probably both scar."

"They're gonna be badass," Lance joked, voice wry even in its exhaustion, "Make the girls at the beach think I'm real tough."

Shiro laughed, jostling Lance a little but not feeling too bad about it. "You _are_ real tough. But sure."

"Gon' be a-" Lance yawned, "Big damn hero."

"Mm-hmm," Shiro agreed.

"We'll be - scar twins -" Lance said, half trailing off and clearly close to sleep.

"Mm-hmm."

Lance's breathing slowed gradually, until Shiro could tell he was asleep. Good. That was good. Sleep would help him heal. Shiro finally relaxed, letting out the last of the tension he'd been holding onto as he worried about Lance, and let himself fall asleep.

In the morning, he helped Lance up and found the gems, and then they put on what armor they still could and got ready for the trek back to the lions, which neither of them felt great about.

At the exit to the cave, before they stepped out into the forest again, Shiro placed a hand carefully on Lance's right shoulder. "It's ok, Lance. It's all downhill, so it should be an easier trek, and then Blue can help once we're flying home.  I'm sure the lions will be back online by now." He wasn't sure who he was trying to reassure more, himself or Lance.

Lance sighted. "It's not that. I just feel like I'm gonna be useless in a fight. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to hold my bayard up without shaking, since it all still hurts. It's like - I know my arms aren't hurt, but it's just hard. It's hard, and I feel like it shouldn't be."

"It's ok," Shiro reassured him, "I've got your back. I'll make sure you're safe. Just stick close to me."

Lance snorted. "Nah, man. I've got _your_ back. Scar twins, remember?"

Shiro laughed. "I can't believe you remember saying that. You were nearly asleep!"

Lance patted him on the shoulder, grinning with something part real, part bravado behind it. "There you go. Knew I'd get a laugh out of you in the daytime if I tried hard enough. Let's go, scar twin."

He was charging forward again before Shiro could answer, "Let's."  Shiro hurried after him, sure he'd slow down before long, but glad he was feeling well enough to start pretending like his old self again.


End file.
